Brett Dennen

Fri 7th Nov, 2008 in Features

Now when I picked up the phone to talk to Brett Dennen, what I was expecting was another surf-rock/folk-pop singer-songwriter. What I got in the end was something else entirely.

“I went skydiving this morning,” Dennen told me in a drawn out high-pitched drawl (imagine a redneck on helium). “Then I entered a hot dog eating contest and this afternoon I’m going to get picked up in a limo to go on a shopping spree.” Sounds pretty Hollywood. “Well you might call it Hollywood, but I just call it my life,” he replies, deadpan.

Dennen is not your average musician. Aside from the witty yet obtuse banter and seemingly jocular nature, Brett is a founding member of The Mosaic Project – a San Francisco Bay Area non-profit organisation that works towards a peaceful future by uniting young children of diverse backgrounds. As the resident rock star, Brett wrote an original music program for the students, which was later released as an album called Children’s Songs For Peace & A Better World. The album also went on to win a Children’s Music Web Award and a Parent’s Choice Approved Award in 2004.

I was unaware of all this at the time, so our conversation stuck firmly to a line of absurdity. “The skydive was alright – I mean all I did was I tied a sheet around my neck and jumped off the bed. But, I mean, I got pictures and everything. Maybe I’ll jump of a chair next, you know I’ve got to pace myself.”

Brett was in a rather strange place (in case you didn’t notice), as at the time of interview he had only recently arrived in Australia for a string of shows. The man was still in the tenacious grip of some serious jetlag. “I can’t feel my arms. Playing is a lot more fun, but it doesn’t sound as good. All I care about is enjoying myself, I just care about myself.”

Our conversation moved to the music scene in L.A. “In LA, if someone plays in town, there’s usually some heads in the crowd and we get up onstage with each other. You know, it’s a small enough world of music that most of us all know each other.”

“I know some of the people,” he continues. “I was hanging out with Donavan Frankenreiter the other day – he was a cool guy and he’s got a new album out. Yeah, the scene is pretty close. If any of us see each other at a festival, if you don’t know somebody [personally], at least you know about them or know someone that knows them. It’s easy to make an introduction with them.”

I suggested that the scene’s closeness might be a sign of all the support between artists and fans in the scene. “There’s a lot of support, but I don’t know; I don’t know if that translates into concert sales or record sales or anything like that. It makes it nice, to know people, but it’s like outside the world of the singer-songwriter the music business is excruciatingly big with hip-hop and country and all of that. That’s a whole world of people I don’t seem to get introduced into.”

Our discussion then took a meandering journey through country music, with Brett admitting he’d love to make a country album, under the name, “Hillbilly Dennen maybe.” I asked him what he knew about Pete Murray, the man he toured with. “I’m going in blind, I don’t know what I’m getting myself into, but I’ve heard good things.”

The talented troubadour was a critical hit on his trip around Australia this September, playing intimate and disarming shows. With a new album Hope For The Hopeless currently winning hearts, Dennen’s small LA world is likely to get a lot bigger.

Brett Dennen’s Hope For The Hopeless is out now on Downtown through Inertia.